


So Move Me, Baby

by AndreaLyn



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: M/M, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25335892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: It's a nice wedding. Why wouldn't Joe and Nicky take the time to enjoy a dance?
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 46
Kudos: 429





	So Move Me, Baby

“I haven’t heard this song in centuries.”

_O Rosa Bella_ is playing from the speakers nearby, the humidity not broken yet on a hot night in the Tuscan hills. Joe rests his cheek on Nicky’s shoulder as they slow-dance, the lyrics calling to them of not leaving them to die a courtly love. Joe’s fingers brush at Nicky’s hip gently, a soft touch that slips past the fabric of his shirt as he steadies the other hand on the back of his head.

They sway to the plucked notes of the lute, amazed this song is even being played, but they’re so close to Florence, why wouldn’t the wedding they’re at play it?

“I remember the first time I heard it, back in the 14th century,” Joe murmurs, breathing just to let Nicky feel the way it expands his diaphragm and pushes his chest out. Nicky slides his hand down Joe’s chest to find the one at his hip, tangling them together as he sets them over Joe’s heart, swaying to the music. “You remember?”

“I remember,” Nicky confirms with the lewd smile that tells Joe he remembers it _exactly_.

Joe closes his eyes as Nicky presses their foreheads together, their hands pressed over Joe’s heart. Nicky’s other hand presses, firmly, to the small of Joe’s back.

“Why don’t we do this more often?”

“Time,” Nicky reminds him. “We’re always working.” 

They barely move on the dance floor, no other sounds to distract them. “We should make time,” is Joe’s belief, closing his eyes as he tips his nose up to drag the tip over the line of Nicky’s neck, sliding his hand down his back to wrap around his waist, cinching them tighter together.

They’ve learned a hundred types of dances, but modernity has given them this.

This is no waltz, no foxtrot, no quickstep around the wedding dance floor. This is their bodies pressed together, as Joe angles his hips to bracket Nicky in with him, smiling as he thinks of this song and all the good memories he has of it. 

“To dance with you? I think we can definitely make the time,” Nicky agrees as he turns his head enough to press his temple to the top of Joe’s head. 

He sighs with such untempered happiness that Joe wants to eat it all up. He could eat Nicky up, if they weren’t dancing in public (or close enough). 

_O Rosa Bella_ comes to an end. 

The petulant noise in Joe’s throat is childish, but he knows what’s about to happen and he doesn’t want to let go of Nicky. 

“My love,” Nicky chastises gently.

“I know,” Joe complains. “It’s too soon.”

“We made a promise.”

The sound of a throat clearing catches their attention. Joe drifts back with a start to see Andy standing by the record stand, tapping her blood-covered watch. “Time’s up. You got your one song.”

Joe doesn’t want to let go of Nicky completely, but they did make a promise. They asked for one song, and they got one song.

When you crash the wedding of a mark and end up killing most of the security guards when the guests go fleeing into the hills, Joe supposes you can’t ask for much more. He offers his hand out to Nicky to help him step over the pile of bodies around them (cut down when they were dancing in a much more violent way). 

“We’ll make time for dancing,” Joe decides, because that’s what people say these days, right?

You make time for the things that are important. 

“It was a nice wedding,” Nicky says, ever the optimistic romantic at heart. Nile is looking at him in disbelief and Andy has seen too many weddings to care anymore, but Joe understands. “They were playing old Renaissance love songs,” he says, enraptured by the romance of it all. “It was a very good wedding.”

Top five, at the very least, thinks Joe. 

“Come on, lovebirds!” Andy summons as they leave the wedding in ruins behind them. “There’ll always be another wedding, with the two of you.”

Maybe the next one they crash will offer the same high quality taste in music too. 

Though, does it matter?

With Nicky in his arms, Joe can dance to anything. It’s just so much better when it’s this romantic. He wraps his arm around Nicky’s shoulders and kisses his temple as they stumble away from the wedding, champagne bubbles long evaporated from their tongues, the cake a toppled disaster collapsed atop the bleeding remnants of the head guard, and the record player scratching. 

Nicky’s absolutely right -- what a great wedding. 

Hopefully, there'll be plenty more to come and more opportunities for a stolen dance.

**Author's Note:**

> The song comes care of [this page](http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/r/renaissance-love-songs/) and features lyrics like these, so it felt right to use:
> 
> _Rescue me already  
>  from my pining  
> Heart of my heart, don't leave me to suffer_
> 
> _O beautiful rose_  
>  oh my sweet soul  
> don't leave me to die in courtly love 


End file.
